Glacier Edge
by Mechalich
Summary: The tiny Twin Moons Commonwealth has developed a weapons system that could turn the tide in the Clone Wars, but the Separatists attack before they are ready. Now a diverse team must spirit the plans to freedom before the Separatist occupation traps them!
1. Chapter 1

**Glacier Edge**

**Author's Introduction: **This is a Clone Wars adventure pure and simple. It is an exploration of the vast canvas presented by that conflict in terms of how a small niche of the galaxy might be affected. The story will center on original characters, with canon players making only bit appearances. Source material draws heavily from little bits of canon to expand to something more in many cases. Explanatory notes will be provided at the end of chapters for readers interested in this. Otherwise enjoy!

**Chapter 1**

**Core Worlds, Coruscant, 421 days after Geonosis**

The Senate Building was a very refined piece of architecture, grand, spacious, and ornate. It was also, to Veishi Heldron's great relief, not particularly crowded, at least for the moment. The young man had been able to find the office he needed without too much trouble, and without pressing through the still incomprehensible crowds of Coruscant he'd observed on the speeder trip from the landing pad.

One trillion sentients, or so the encyclopedia entry said anyway, it had mentioned discrepancies about census accuracy regarding the lower levels, but whatever the margin of error it was too much for the pilot to accept. He couldn't properly conceive of such an astounding number of people, even having gotten a long look at the planet's surface from orbit while he fought with Coruscant Traffic Control for several hours. At this point he was still trying to work through his mind that there might be individual building complexes on this planet with a greater population than his homeworld.

It was depressing thinking, and his spirits were already abysmal, but he couldn't help running through the numbers over and over again. How could he expect help for his own Twin Moons Commonwealth in such a massive place? What would a trillion people care for the concerns of less than one hundred and fifty million?

This overwhelming sense of inconsequentiality pressed down on him, but he had a duty to complete and his military training had been good. It had been a long journey, but Lieutenant Heldron intended to fulfill his objective on this massive city-world.

He pressed the intercom plate on the office door. "Lieutenant Veishi Heldron to see Senator Sen Vike."

Without acknowledgement the door slid open, something fitting to the military-minded young man. He walked in carefully.

The first room was not the expansive antechamber he might have expected, but merely a work area. Four desks, two on each side, with smart, modern workstations made a simple column to a modest door at the back of the hall. There were no decorations, really, only the normal basic gray of the building, with a single wrap around banner just above door height in the crosshatched silver and maroon used by the Epicanthix Impergium Navy on official symbols.

Of the four workers, and the young pilot guessed they must be the Senator's aides, they were split between men and women, and he suspected not substantially older than he was. All were near-humans, but he did not recognize the races specifically, only that they were not Euthons like himself, or Epicanthix, something he thought odd. He would have expected the Senator to have members of his own species as aides.

The lady closest to the door looked up at him as he entered and simply motioned him on, not bothering to say anything before getting back to her work. Veishi nodded acknowledgement anyway and then cautiously approached the Senator's door. It opened just as he arrived, indicating either surveillance or a certain level of intelligence to the door system. The information the Lieutenant had read on the Senator, and he had gone through everything available during the long journey to Coruscant, made him suspect the former. The door closed behind him as he stepped inside.

It was not the typical Senator's office, all flowery decoration and precious objects of art. There was in fact little decoration at all, and what was present was decidedly martial in nature, unit banners, plaques from various ships and campaigns, and the like. The Senator's desk was a simple, unadorned office desk like his aide's used, the kind that you could find in any government institution in the Core Worlds. Veishi wondered if this was humility or if the Senator's Spartan office, which led only to a small side room that he apparently slept in, according to the newszines, was his way of calling out the rest of the senate as a bunch of posh poseurs.

The Senator rose from behind his desk as the young man approached, and then did something completely unexpected. He straightened and saluted.

Veishi knew his mouth was almost hanging open, but he recovered from his keen embarrassment quickly enough to return the salute. He felt shabby though, Senator Vike wore the spotless maroon and silver uniform of an Epicanthix Impergium Rear Admiral, while he had only his much battered flight suit, very dirty now from several days in the cockpit. Starfighters were not meant to travel from the Outer Rim to the Core in the fashion he had. He felt a sudden need to mention this. "My apologies for my appearance sir, but I-"

"Not needed," Vike cut him off. The gray-haired Epicanthix had a magisterial look, but he smiled with grandfatherly warmth. "It shows dedication, besides, good for all those loungers out there to see a pilot rushing back from battle, helps to remind them that there is a war on after all."

Veishi could only nod, thankful for the Senator's tolerance. He knew he was pressing on it significantly just by coming to the man in the first place, though that had government sanction at least.

"Anyway, sit down," Vike motioned to a chair in front of his desk before doing likewise. "I gather we have things to talk about."

"Yes sir," Veishi felt comfortable with sir, it was an appropriate response to an officer. He had no idea how to address a Senator, especially considering the relationship between his world and the Impergium.

"I've gotten the holomessage about the Separatist attack on the Twin Moons," Vike spoke first. "And I must say decisions have already been made. You probably know this already, but the Impergium's sitting this one out. We'll support the Republic cause by paying our taxes and sending intelligence reports just like everyone else, but the EIN stays inside our borders. I feel bad for the Commonwealth, I do," he eyes expressed real honesty, a soldier's regret, Veishi thought, not a politician's. "I fought against your little rebellion you know, and so I know you're tough stuff. Being swamped by overwhelming Sep force isn't fair, but that's the price I suppose. An independent tributary has to provide for its own defense."

Vike delivered crushing information honestly, like the soldier he had once been. It came to Veishi's mind that Epicanthix lifespans truly were long, as the Twin Moons had won their independence almost sixty years before. The Senator was probably close to one hundred years old, but he appeared as a human of sixty might.

It took a moment for the pilot to regain his bearings again, recalling his overwhelmed homeworld, the small fleet he served in having retreated without even daring to give battle, hiding away in space hoping for support to retake their homes. "I understand that there won't be aid, that's not why I was sent," he managed.

"Really?" the Senator appeared interested. "You're clearly not here to attempt to lobby the Republic for some kind of rescue fleet, they'd send a diplomat for that, and it's a lost cause regardless, so what information are you carrying that can't be trusted to the Holonet?"

"The reason we were invaded sir," Veishi answered, and he drew on the information he had absorbed as he left, and the speech he had been rehearsing for long hours in a cramped cockpit.

"I see," Vike leaned back. "I did think it was curious that the Separatists attacked you, it seemed like a terrible risk to take for really no gain." He pinned the young pilot with a hard look, the look an admiral uses against a very junior officer in a great deal of trouble. "Just what is it that you people possess that the Separatists wanted?"

"A weapons system," Veishi blurted, losing his composure. "A technology for starfighter superiority."

"Go on."

"I don't know all the details," the pilot apologized. "Most of the information I have was relayed by a tightbeam laser transmission from fleet command right before jumping to hyperspace." He paused, taking a deep breath. "It's called the Gimbaled Rotary Laser Cannon sir; it's a design that gives the targeting and flexibility of a quad laser turret to a starfighter's laser cannon. If bonded to a fighter design, and we have one, called the Sentinel, made to use it, you basically can mount something with the anti-fighter capacity of three quad turrets onto a platform with starfighter speed and maneuverability, meaning."

Vike held up his hand, his eyes clearly focused well past the wall he was actually looking at. It was precisely what the Twin Moons pilot needed to see. He'd worried about trying to explain the technology to a politician, forgetting that the Epicanthix Impergium was a military government and the Senator a military man. It was obvious he understood.

"A weapon like that," Vike was murmuring mostly to himself. "It wouldn't be always useful, but in major battles, against large enemy starfighter forces, especially if the fighters weren't particularly durable…by the Force, it would take the Separatist fleet apart!"

"Yes sir," Veishi felt compelled to offer his agreement. The Separatists fielded huge hordes of droid fighters; he recalled seeing them come at him, a vast cloud in the blackness of space. His Dagger fighter, a variant on the old Cloakshape hull, was designed principally to engage a single enemy fighter at once, a small fighter group at most, but a space-superiority fighter like the Sentinel, well, they'd have to invent a whole new category of ace for those guys.

"I always thought you Twin Moons boys were inventive," the Senator shook his head. "So what happened to this laser cannon design? If you have the specs with you I suspect we can bribe the Republic into freeing your worlds, assuming that's the plan."

"We tried to evacuate the plans sir, and Dr. Compesda, the designer," the young soldier shook his head. "We failed sir."

Vike's eyes narrowed. "Take me through it, exactly what happened?"

"The Separatists came out of hyperspace without warning," Veishi recalled the klaxons, hurriedly yanking on his flightsuit, the flightsuit he was still wearing now days later, rushing to his Dagger fighter in absolute chaos. "The patrol groups engaged them, but they couldn't buy us more than a few moments," both men knew how small the Twin Moons navy was, and they'd faced a full fledged Separatist fleet, there'd been no chance from the start. "Admiral Tovret ordered everything into the air, even the support staff to evacuate in shuttles, transports, everything we had, or if they couldn't get transport to flee into the countryside with the ground forces. He had us blast the bases to rubble as we left." It had been the hardest thing he'd done in his short life, turning his fighter's laser cannons on the barracks where he'd been trained, reducing so much of what their little government had struggled to build over decades into slag in moments.

The Senator nodded when hearing this, apparently recognizing the callous but effective strategy of the move to deny military bases to incoming Separatist forces.

"The Admiral also ordered Dr. Compesda's lab destroyed, and he tasked a commando unit, the Ice Daggers, one of the best, to get him out in a shuttle. My squad, Emerald, was their escorts." Veishi wasn't looking at the Senator anymore, he was staring back into his past, the scream of engines as the shuttle hurtled from the frozen surface of Temishi III, the swarm of laser fire as the droid fighters chased after them, the chaos all over the com channels, battle taking everyone for the first time. "The droids, there were too many of them, just too many. We tried to hold them off but we couldn't do it. The shuttle was damaged and couldn't make the jump. The Ice Dagger captain, I can't remember his name, diverted to Temishi IV, saying they'd hide out in the ice caves, protect the doctor and the only copy of the data. Lieutenant Illiat's flight went with them," He recalled the young Cybin woman, a good friend, even if she always berated him about small arms training. "The Captain, Captain Niad, he took his flight right into the droid fighters, went to punch through, to buy a few seconds, he, he knew…"

Veishi couldn't go on; his mind was viewing over and over again those four Dagger fighters hurling themselves into the heart of two hundred or more droid attackers, lasers blaring, no caution, no hope, no return, and no chance at all.

His voice seemed to march on without him. "My flight was ordered to divert," he spoke like an automaton now. "The admiral's personal orders, three to Panatha, to ask the Impergium for aid, and one all the way to Coruscant, to pursue any opportunities, any at all."

"A hard thing to do," Senator Vike said softly. "To be ordered to live, to leave, when your comrades die; a very hard thing indeed." He gave the young pilot a caring look. "There's no shame though, you've done your duty, and I've heard your story. Let's just confirm a few things, shall we?"

"Sir."

"So, I gather from what you've told me," Vike's voice was methodical, careful, as if he were conducting an inspection. "You've got plans for this new weapon, and a fighter to put it on, and the scientist who came up with it. All the copies have been erased except one, with the scientist."

"Yes sir," Veishi wasn't sure where the Senator was going, but he would do his best to be helpful, he didn't see any other options.

"Now, the trouble is, those plans and that scientist are stuck on Temishi IV, one of the Twin Moons, and currently under Separatist occupation." The Senator's expression was grimmer.

"The Ice Daggers' will keep them safe a long while sir," Veishi was adamant, and he truly believed it. "They're the best, everyone says, and they went down in the Shattered Glacier. You said you served in the war; droids won't be able to get them out of there. They can evade for a long time, and they'll destroy the data before capture."

"True," Vike admitted. "That maze of ice isn't some place I'd try to go after a group of commandos, certainly not with droids, but eventually they'll run out of supplies and freeze, even if they can evade all the droids in the galaxy. Apologies to your moons, but the surface of those places aren't fit even for you natives."

It was true enough, humans had never been meant to inhabit binary moons orbiting a gas giant in a red giant system, and a few millennia of evolution might have made Cybins and Euthons more able to take it, but the freezing surfaces would still be lethal in short order if you ran out of suit power. "They can still hold out for months, sir," Veishi stood firm, convinced that they could. He'd done basic training out on the ice just like the rest of the navy recruits, he knew they could last.

"Fair enough," Vike replied. "So, we have a modest window if we want to get these plans, after which they'll either be in Separatist hands, which is very bad, or they'll be gone, which is bad, but not quite as much, and you've come all the way here to appeal for someone to do something about that."

"Yes sir," Veishi did not feel very confident in that last reply.

"The best way to get our hands on this weapon of yours would be to charge in, blast the Sep fleet to scrap, and find your scientist," Vike grimaced. "But the Impergium's decided not to do that even after hearing this story from the rest of your flight, and I'll tell you right now that the Republic won't either. I could try of course, but it won't amount to much of anything. The Impergium's not well liked around here, and normally we prefer that they ignore us, I don't have any friends to call in favors from. So where does that leave us?"

It was hard, very hard, for Veishi to say the next part, because it meant consigning his world to Separatist occupation until likely the end of the war, and possibly forever if the Republic should lose, which was certainly possible, but he squared his shoulders and spoke up anyway. It was his duty to, and since the rest of the Twin Moons Navy couldn't be here, he didn't dare let it down. "Sir, if we can just get to the Ice Daggers with a ship we could get the plans out. The Twin Moons Navy is prepared to sortie to cover an extraction."

"That's awfully gallant," Vike lowered his head, clearly understanding, just as the young pilot did, how many casualties might be incurred in such an effort against a superior droid force. "But still tricky, you'd need a nasty little ground crew to handle the extraction, basically more commandos to rescue your commandos, and presumably you want something better than your own guys, or you'd try it with them."

"There's a problem of communication sir, we don't have any secure method to contact the Ice Daggers that the Separatists aren't likely to compromise." It was a complicated way to say that they were utterly lost in an iceball wilderness.

"That's quite a stumbling block you know," Vike appeared thoughtful. "That explains why the Impergium won't send its own commando team, finding someone in the Shattered Glacier who doesn't want to be found, I'd put that at pretty close to impossible."

"For commandos sir, yes, but we hoped the Republic might…" Veishi couldn't quite bring himself to voice the concept.

"A Jedi?" the Senator picked up where the pilot had left off. "An interesting idea, though I've no idea if Jedi can do something like that."

"I thought they could," the disappointment was crushing, but the young soldier had one last bit of information he could offer. "There's a woman with the Ice Daggers who can use the Force though."

"What, you mean you've got a Jedi with them already? Then why are you bothering me?"

"No, sir, sorry sir," Veishi apologies. "It's not a Jedi, just someone who can sense the Force."

"Oh, I see," Vike became thoughtful, running his hand along his chin. "The Jedi don't like us Epicanthix you know," he gave Veishi a tough look.

The young man knew that, it was fairly common scuttlebutt. In all honesty, he wasn't sure if anyone really liked the Epicanthix. Being nice wasn't exactly one of their prime species traits. It was hard enough on his pride to stand here begging before the representative of a government that had conquered his own people, the Euthons and their sister people the Cybins, and lorded over them for four hundred years before finally being driven off to the point of becoming an 'Autonomous Tributary State.' "Senator, sir," he swallowed his pride further, duty demanded it. "Our fleet's willing to promise to fight for the Republic for the rest of the war if we can just get the plans out."

There was a brief moment when surprise passed over Vike's face and it was clear for the pilot to see, and hen he went formal again. "That's a strong offer young man. I admire your spirit, and I admire you coming so far." His face grew grim. "I can't make the Imperators do anything, and they've decided the Impergium won't help you directly, but as Senator I represent all the tributary states to the Republic as well. I'll do what I can."

Veishi felt suddenly positive at this, a surge of good feeling, but the Senator wasn't done.

"I can't promise anything," the gray-haired Epicanthix shook his head. "The Jedi Council doesn't seem to listen anyone but its own and maybe Palpatine, and I haven't got friends there, but I'll petition. If, and it's a big if, understand, they pledge support then I can put together a few people to fill out a mission and find a suitable ship. That part's easy on Corsucant. It's going to take some work though. So, I want you to head outside and talk to my aides, they'll find you a hotel room for the evening, a change of clothes, and so forth, and I'll have them call tonight when there's some news, all right?"

"Yes sir," Veishi wasn't elated, the Senator's response was quite sobering, but it was also honest, the Epicanthix was going to try, the Impergium wasn't shutting them out totally, which considering the scars of rebellion they could have been reasonably expected to do. He knew going to the Republic directly, petitioning the Jedi Council or whoever ran the war on his own would get nowhere, so this man had just offered the Twin Moons whatever chance they had. He dared to hope that the mission would happen; that it would succeed, and when their weapon vanished, then the Separatists would leave his cold home. He stood and saluted before marching out.

**Chapter Notes:** The Epicanthix are a canon near-human species (Yun, from the Jedi Knight game, is the most notable example), native to Panatha in the Pacanth Reach, which they reputedly control. They were said to be a warrior species with long life spans, the Impergium (which will continually gain more detail as the story progresses) is my invention, but they must have had some form of government. Cybins, Euthons, and the Twin Moons Commonwealth are original creations.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Core Worlds, Coruscant, 421 days after Geonosis**

Senator Seng Vike sat down slowly after the young pilot had left. He avoided sighing, because that wasn't the kind of thing in the habit of a man who'd been in military service for the better part of eighty years, but he felt like it would have been appropriate. The whole Twin Moons situation rubbed him the wrong way. He understood the why of it now, and that helped, but it was still annoying. He was a soldier, and now the galaxy was involved in the biggest war in at least a millennium and his government was sitting it out.

All in all, Vike knew he agreed with the Imperators' decision to make no real choice in the conflict. The Republic didn't really benefit the Impergium, but it was doubtful the Seperatists would either, the concerns of a small star cluster that would have preferred the right to freely conquer some weak neighbors weren't on the top of any galactic government's priority list. Besides, what kind of Epicanthix warrior would fight for the cause of two governments fighting behind proxy armies of droids and clones? He knew he wasn't one of them.

The Twin Moons was different though. Blue-skinned Cybins and blue-haired Euthons weren't Epicanthix, but they were part of the human lineage, and they were part of the Impergium, in one way or another. Abandoning them was a real sacrifice. Nevertheless, you couldn't start a war involving four hundred and fifty worlds with half a trillion total inhabitants over a pair of little moons with a paltry one hundred and fifty million souls. He was a Rear Admiral, he'd commanded task forces with the power to reduce cities to dust from orbit, and he understood the numbers.

Send one Jedi and a few commandos to retrieve a technology, give the poor boys on their iceballs some hope, and maybe change the course of the war though, he could see to doing that. So Vike pushed a button on his desk console. "Ina," he told one of his aides. "Set up an appointment at the earliest possible time with whichever member of the Jedi Council is currently on this planet," they were all over the place these days, fighting in the war, now fourteen months old, and he couldn't risk this on the holonet. "Tell them I need to consult about a matter of military importance, and if that's not enough, stress the secrecy, understood?"

"Yes Senator," she replied, all-business.

Vike was sure it would happen. The Epicanthix Impergium might not be anyone's favorite government, and he might abstain from almost all his votes just like the Imperators wanted, but he was still a member in good standing with the Galactic Senate, the Jedi Council couldn't just brush him off. He did regret the bad relationship somewhat now, despite not caring much for Jedi ways. If the Imepergium had produced any members of the Jedi Order he imagined he'd have far greater leverage. Oh well, Vike decided. I can always leverage our military if I have to.

The Jedi Temple was, to Vike's military eye, a singularly indefensible building, even the Senate would have been somewhat harder to take. Then again, the prospect of invading a world like Coruscant was one he never even wanted to think about. If he was ever sitting over the galactic capital with a fleet he was pretty certain he'd order bombardment, not a surface assault, scaling vertical positions wasn't the purpose of ground troops anyway.

Of course, the Jedi didn't see themselves as a military order, even though, at least in this Clone War, they certainly were, comprising essentially the entirety of the Republic's senior military officers. The former admiral had thought it was almost comical at the beginning of the war, when he personally had probably as much military command experience as the rest of the Jedi Council put together. Fighting bounty hunters and getting into lightsaber fights with criminals didn't count as warfare to him. Still, it had worked out better than he would have imagined. Some of those Jedi were fine commanders, elite even. Then again, it couldn't be that hard to lead a bunch of super-soldier clones, but he tried not to think about the white-armor boys too much, it was too messy for his taste.

"Senator, what is your business with us?" a young padawan, a human boy, had come out to great Vike as he left his speeder.

"I have an appointment, with Master Plo Koon," he hoped he'd pronounced it correctly, alien names were not his strength.

"Of course, please follow me," the Padawan hurried along, moving surprisingly fast for a young boy, but then Jedi always seemed to be moving entirely too slowly or unbelievably fast. The old senator had to work somewhat to keep up, but he wasn't about to complain, he took pride in still being fit despite his years.

The Padawan led the Senator through the temple swiftly, giving little time to admire the exquisite artwork and architecture. Not that Vike cared about such things; he was a man genuinely interested only in function, a trait shared with many Epicanthix, and even with those poor Twin Moons citizens. Still, he'd learned to feign interest in cultured manners while serving as a Senator. Other people seemed to care.

"Master Plo Koon will see you now," the Padawan gestured to a small chamber.

The Jedi Master had chosen to meet Vike in a small chamber; one the retired admiral guessed was used for meditation, the Jedi apparently being beyond such things as offices. "Welcome," the Jedi Master said in a deep and somehow reassuring voice as the Senator entered.

It helped, it truly did, but Vike still had to steel himself somewhat to meet those masked eyes. As a Kel Dor Plo Koon was far from a truly exotic alien on Coruscant, but the old Epicanthix nevertheless wasn't completely comfortable dealing with him, as with all aliens. Fifteen years of service as a Senator hadn't rubbed away his initial life completely. It's funny, Vike thought darkly. That poor Euthon pilot, blue wispy hair, skin whiter than clone trooper armor, and no problems, because he's human lineage, aliens are still different. It was not that he disliked aliens, or thought of them as inferior, it was just that they were different, physiologically and psychologically. You could never be sure of yourself when dealing with alternate brain chemistry. Such was the habit that had grown up in the Impergium, where there were plenty of different human types, but almost no aliens. Wait till we figure out the human tree, then we'll move on to you types. Vike would have rather have had it that way, but he had to deal with the galaxy as it was. At least this one's a good general, he reminded himself.

"You wished to speak with a member of the Council Senator?" Plo Koon's mask and visor made him essentially expressionless, which was in some ways easier to deal with than trying to read an alien expression.

"Yes," the senator replied. "One of our tributary states, the Twin Moons, in the Mishiniat system, has been attacked by the Separatists, I'm sure it wasn't in your intelligence briefing," he forestalled the Jedi's likely remark. "But I have just received word that this conflict may be more important than it initially seemed."

"All conflicts, large or small, are of grave importance," Plo Koon admonished.

Play along it's Jedi stuff, just play along, Vike told himself. "Of course Master Jedi, I meant that in the strategic, military sense only."

"And what have you discovered?"

"Apparently," Vike began to reiterate briefly what the young pilot had told him earlier. "A scientist on the Twin Moons has developed a modified laser cannon for starfighters that would provide a significant space superiority advantage, particularly against droid starfighter tactics," he recalled that Plo Koon was a skilled pilot, maybe he'd gotten lucky with this one. "Unfortunately, they failed to escape the invasion in time and are now trapped onworld, but well guarded by a commando unit in inaccessible terrain. In order to extract the scientist and the only remaining copy of the design plans, we'd need to be able to rapidly locate them and then escape under the cover of a sortie by the Twin Moons Navy, presently hiding in interstellar space."

"You desire a Jedi for this mission," Plo Koon added, it was not a question.

Vike was hardly surprised, he was speaking to a Jedi Master after all, they did that, but it was still somewhat disconcerting t think about someone who could observe your thoughts, however murky they claimed such perception was. "Yes, since there's no technological means for rapid contact it was thought a Jedi might be able to locate them swiftly. I've been informed there is a…I believe Force-user is the technical term, soldier with the commando party."

"Is there now," Plo Koon's voice was unreadable. "How intriguing. What else do you ask of the council for this mission of yours, Senator?"

"Nothing," Vike would have preferred to not have to ask anything at all, but the services of Jedi were one of the few things not available on the black market. "In my capacity as Senator for the Epicanthix Impergium I will charter a vehicle suitable for transport, something appropriately covert, and the services of a small commando unit to accompany any Jedi you select."

"I see," Plo Koon turned his head slightly. "I will look into this matter carefully, and the Council will deliberate it. I will provide you with an answer tomorrow."

"Thank you Master," it was a totally non-committal response, but about what Vike had expected. "I will return to my work then and await any news."

As he turned to go, Plo Koon unexpectedly added something else. "You do not like us, Senator of the Epicanthix, and we have often disapproved of your government's policies, but do not think that the Jedi will not act according to justice because of such difficulties."

"I was thinking nothing of the kind," Vike replied, a little insulted, cursed Jedi superiority. "I'm a soldier myself master Plo Koon, not like the rest of the Senate, I understand the nature of military priorities, and I know how little any sense of 'justice' has to do with it. Either you'll consider this worth a Jedi's time, or you'll find someplace else where you think its better spent. I've tried to offer the most conducive conditions I can, but I don't run the war, this temple and the Chancellor do, so it's your choice, ultimately. Good day."

The Kel Dor Jedi Master was mercifully silent as he headed out.

Vike decided that he wouldn't wait for the Council's response, but would make some calls anyway. He didn't doubt that the Imperators hadn't sent some operative or other to the Temishi moons to observe matters, but spending a bit of his Senatorial operating budget to send a few more, Jedi or not, wouldn't hurt. Mercenary services didn't come cheap these days, but he still had a few people who owed him from before the War began, that would help.

**Chapter Notes:** Imperator is actually a Roman title for a Supreme leader, with military overtones. The Imperators represent a shadowy clique of men who control the Epicanthix Impergium as essentially a junta. Master Plo Koon is used in part because he's one of a relatively small number of Jedi Masters on the Council for the entirety of the Clone Wars (the composition shifted several times).


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Outer Rim, Temishi IV, 421 days after Geonosis**

It had taken five seconds of combat to realize there was a right way to hit a battle droid with flesh, bone, and combat padding. It had taken five minutes to puzzle that out for the common B-1 and B-2 battle droids. It had taken five days to perfect this method so that it became fully integrated into the bare-handed fighting style of a Teras Kasi master. How many shattered battle droids it had taken, Chloe Vell couldn't have said.

She did know that she needed to increase the total by a solid seven sometime in the next five minutes, at which point she would run out of ice canyon and give her pursuers a clear shot. Exactly how she would do this, while dodging, weaving and jumping over terrain consisting entirely of ice, not all of it from water, at temperatures so cold it would shatter many durasteel tools when struck, with knife sharp edges on a billion seismic break lines, was momentarily eluding her.

The droids were apparently getting smarter, there were functioning in two groups of three with a trailer, though whether that was by design or because of microbial deviations in their terrain processing software the martial artist didn't know and wasn't worrying about. It was one of the many problems relegated below the survival priority that was presently occupying her complete attention.

Two droids at once, no problem, three at once, doable with a trick or two, but with a group behind it meant getting shot up by the second group, or even if she did evade, by the trailer. She needed a break point, something that would prevent the droids from supporting each other, and she needed it yesterday.

Thankfully, when it came to chaotic, incomprehensibly hostile terrain, the Shattered Glacier clearly intended to take home some sort of galactic prize. So when Chloe saw a diamond shaped panel of ice about the size of a speeder and the thickness of her leg hanging suspended on one point at the bottom of the canyon after a sickeningly tight turn, it wasn't unusual, it was ordinary.

Blaster bots sent small explosions of suddenly liberated methane ice bursting free of millennia old glaciation all around her as the artist ducked and, having familiarized herself with this environment, slid instead of rolled underneath the icy block. She came up behind, slightly off center but knowing that the droids' programming didn't include a subroutine to aim for the feet when that was all they could see.

B-1 battle droids weren't smart, but they weren't complete idiots, at least not in most things. They didn't come charging up to a target they had just lost, they tried to stop beforehand and blow the mixed element ice apart while their target hid behind it. However, they hadn't been programmed for this terrain, and by now Chloe realized it.

The front three droids, already moving at above red line speed in an attempt to catch the swift and surefooted martial artist, attempted to stop and instead went skidding forward through the bottom of the ice canyon.

Exerting all her strength the warrior smashed the block of ice down onto the three of them. Flipping herself up along with it.

The next three droids, slightly more stable, got off a few wild shots as Chloe planted her left foot on an icy outcropping, whirled through the air, and snap-kicked the right hand droid in the line to take the head right off at the pivot joint.

She let her body fall after that, but grabbed the headless droid on the way down, hurling its body into its fellows. The center droid failed to dodge this absurd projectile, and one on the left managed to pitch itself forward to slam flat on the ice with a cry of tortured circuits as it successfully evaded.

Staying down, knowing shots were coming from the one behind, the marital artist flowed, there was no other suitable word, over the fallen droids, slamming elbows and knees with precision to kill the critical circuits and render them inoperative.

The droid in the back came up, closing in, but the sloping nature of the canyon meant that all Chloe need do was stand straight and suddenly she presented a much smaller target profile while the droid, not conscious of micro-topography changes in this fashion, was totally vulnerable. She took its head clean off using the head of one of its fellows as a projectile, smiling a little behind the environment suit's transparent composite helmet mask. She was getting quite good at that.

Two hundred kilos of ice wouldn't crush three battle droids, but Chloe didn't need to get hand to hand to finish the job, she borrowed one of the droid's E-5 blaster rifles and, with a stream of not particularly well aimed shots, poured enough energy into the surrounding ice to release volatile gases and turn them into roast droid, as the troopers joked.

Then she started running again, it was time to clear the canyon, attempt to cross half a klick of surface ice, or at least what the C&Es, the Cybins and Euthons, insisted on referred to as a surface, without being spotted by aerial recon or the dwarf spider droids now swarming everywhere in these glaciers, then navigate through a crevasse to an ice tunnel where she could rejoin the Ice Daggers in what would hopefully be a camp suitable for a day's layover. She wasn't getting her hopes up about that last one. The droids were lousy trackers, and trying to search for someone out here was like trying to find a cotton ball in a pool of glass shards, but someone was directing the search effectively and there were just too many of the 'brittleboxes' as some of the commandos called them.

Well, Chloe, she told herself. You wanted a challenge, and war certainly delivered.

Crossing over to the surface was easy enough, she could jump, scramble, and scurry as well as any, better than even most of the C&Es, and they lived in this stuff. Getting anywhere on what remained of the top of the glacier, though, that was a bit more complicated.

If you took a tourist out to Temishi IVs Shattered Glacier, someone with a good appreciation for natural formations, they probably would have said it was beautiful. If you'd then asked them to hike across it for any distance they would have said you were insane. The glacier had been stable, just moving back and forth across about one hundred thousand square kilometers of surface according to the flow and counter flow of tidal heating from the gas giant Temishi, the great blue globe hanging above them, for twenty thousand years. Then, about ten millennia back, before anyone had been crazy enough to live on the binary moons, something big had hit Temishi IV smack in the middle of the glacier. The result was rather like taking a big chunk of ice, hitting it with a huge sledgehammer, and then hurling all the scattered shards back into it like giant darts.

There were places in the universe where gravity had a sense of humor, in the Shattered Glacier it was hard to keep laughing.

Great spires and ridges and mountains of ice made up of chemicals that in some cases Chloe couldn't remember their names they were so long sprouted, burrowed, furrowed, and generally made the horizon look like a blue-stained microscope image from the inside. Recalling that the ambient temperature was presently something like one hundred Kelvin, only a few degrees above the point at which oxygen in her breath would actually start to liquefy if not for the suit's protection, didn't help her enthusiasm. The Ice Daggers seemed to think that fact was funny. Then again, they could be odd sometimes, it was pretty obvious. Most commando groups had nervous habits involving their blasters, these one's all centered on the suits.

They were good builders, she admitted as she skated and sprinted in quick bursts from the shadow of one massive ice pylon to another, scrambled over a third, and generally did her best impression of a cricket as she moved. A lot better than the Epicanthix, who preferred to take and master the best things from other cultures, sometimes even refining or improving them. She was a good example of the species, a master of the imported Teras Kasi fighting style. She'd had teachers and rivals from many species in her study, including the C&Es, who were mad about the art. They'd learned from the Epicanthix, because it gave them the strength to rebel, while Chloe had her own reasons for mastering the ancient way of fighting.

She could hear a spider droid in the distance, but a few careful glances turned up nothing, it must not have angle to her position, and the martial artist trusted the chaotic terrain to keep things that way for a little longer. Even the spiders, designed to move in complex environments like mining tunnels, had trouble out here, the Separatists had been forced to modify their heat exhaust ports so they didn't melt their way into the ice as they walked and set off an eventual explosion. Chloe figured a smart army would have realized that when your troops destroyed themselves just walking on the ground that you should go invade a different planet, but it was probably what you ought to have expected when you let a bunch of merchants decide to go to war.

She checked her HUD display for the topographic holomap when she hit the crevasse, making sure she was where they'd planned to be. Uncertain Chloe took a few deep breaths and focused on looking past the world. Yes, she could feel them out there alright, and headed in what seemed to be the appropriate direction. There were no weird spikes or fluxes either, the only words she had to describe such impressions, so it seemed the situation was more or less stable.

The Epicanthix martial artist leapt down into the crevasse, using her elbows and knees to produce friction, control her rate of descent, and then move from ledge to ledge so she could walk with something resembling consistent motion. It was slow going, and vulnerable if anyone should spot her, but considering she couldn't see the massive blue marble of Temishi hanging in the sky that wasn't likely unless someone snaked a wire camera down here. Thermal imaging wasn't a worry, the environment suit handled that fine, she looked just like another block of ice, and all the precious heat was saved by being reflected back into her body. It still wasn't enough to keep her warm, but Chloe could manage, she'd been put through extended privations before in her training and this was much the same.

They said a Jedi could have walked across the icy surface of Temishi IV naked, clothed only in the Force, and lived. The C&Es even claimed that the Jedi who'd secretly aided their rebellion against the Impergium had done it, but Chloe was deeply skeptical. She could feel the Force, even use it, some, and her Teras Kasi training had given her control over the one real talent she possessed, but fighting off this cold seemed out of reach even for that. Then again, they said Jedi Masters could lift starships with their minds, and she couldn't move a hairpin. Perhaps if the Jedi had bothered to come looking for students in the Epicanthix Impergium she'd have found out, but they hadn't, so she'd settle for knowing how to break every bone in a humanoid's body with a minimum of effort.

The ice tunnel was where it was supposed to be, though it was disturbingly dark. Temishi IV was a binary moon orbiting a gas giant in a red giant system. Night was something that didn't truly happen, just like day. Truly dark places here could be dangerous, even though it was actually warmer when you got away from the frozen surface. Chloe's nightvision was good, but she couldn't she into the infrared like the Cybins could. Thankfully there was light amplification in her helmet's options, though it turned everything a freakish unnatural turquoise. She didn't want to get into a fight using such conditions, it might be better to fight blind.

Now the Force was comforting, because it was empty, meaning there ought not to be any of the truly nasty predators that lurked rarely in the ice tunnels of this world. There wasn't enough of an ecology to sustain many such things, and fleshy lifeforms weren't high on their menu, but they could smash you to pulp all the same. It struck the marital artist as a particularly pathetic way to be killed.

How far the tunnel went Chloe didn't know, but eventually, just as she was loosing even the last vestige of surface light, she picked up some artificial ones. The HUD was quickly able to confirm that the spectral pattern was the one the natives used, not the different pattern, based on non-human physiology, used by the droids. It seemed the Ice Daggers, or at least someone friendly, was ahead.

She didn't try to sneak up on the encampment. She wasn't without some stealthy methods, but moving down a circular tunnel of ice in absolute darkness with a trained commando staring up at you was beyond her ability. There was no reason to test anyone's already frayed nerves after five days of evasion by pushing when it wasn't necessary.

The challenge came at three hundred meters, the first point where there was a reasonable angle for a shot from the edge of the intersection chamber of tunnels below. A secure comlink transmitted to the one in her helmet, demanding the duty password. She stopped, gave it, and then moved on. The Ice Daggers knew her by sight anyway, but the caution was warranted. The galaxy contained shapeshifters and worse after all, though Chloe doubted she'd ever meet a shapeshifter would could properly imitate the movement of a Teras Kasi master without going through the training first. Well, maybe a Jedi shapeshifter, but that was on her list of things that hopefully do not exist.

Upon receiving her answer the commando straightened, rising up to become at least slightly visible, though the patterned blue armor of the Twin Moons commandos was always difficult to see against the ice. "Welcome back Specialist," he greeted her.

Specialist, Chloe held back from shaking her head in irritation. It was the only thing they would call her, the Captain was the only one willing to use her actual name. The rest would only use that rank, Unarmed Combat Training Specialist, the position the Twin Moons Navy had given her here, when she worked with them as an instructor. It was not appreciated, Teras Kasi was a deadly martial art to be sure, aggressive and often brutal, but she was no soldier, and not even a Twin moons citizen.

Somehow the martial artist supposed that the commandos called her Specialist to try and forget that she was Epicanthix, that there was a barrier of former enmity between their species. All of the commandos were too young to recall the rebellion, just as she herself was, but the wound was still there amongst these hardy and proud people.

"Captain Trovin is expecting you," the armored commando added on the comlink channel as she passed him and entered the small encampment in this intersection of icy gouges and tunnels.

"Right," she told the commando. She didn't remember his name; they were too difficult to tell apart in that composite armor suit with the full face masking, effectively opaque in the darkness. It was fearsome armor, the Twin Moons had copied the designs from the Impergium's elite soldiers, and those designs had been taken from the Sith armies of old, when they had threatened the Impergium during its founding fifteen hundred years before. It was a solid design, protective and good for use in myriad hostile environments, and intimidating. Chloe still didn't particularly like it, there was something tacky about wearing armor similar to what your enemies had developed, but she thought it better than that Mandalorian stuff the Republic Clones used.

Pale blue light, reflecting in a thousand fragments off the scattered ice, illuminated the Ice Dagger's little camp. Everything was centered around their sole Ice Badger, a ten-wheeled crawler that could haul the whole squad behind its armor, defensive lasers, and two hardened E-web stations. It was the only vehicle of substance they'd managed to pull out of their freighter when they'd crashed attempting to escape. Chloe noted that the pair of speeder bikes, the only other ground machines they had, were absent, so a pair of the Emerald squadron pilots must still be on patrol. That was somewhat worrisome, but the droids didn't stop, so they couldn't stop either.

Captain Zindishi Trovin waited by the side of the Badger, going over the holomap with one of the commandos, not the Lieutenant or the Sergeant, so Chloe didn't recognize the trooper. She couldn't keep these C&Es straight, with their blue hair or white-stripped blue skin and their weird naming convention. Privately she thought of them as 'the Ishis' in her lesser moments. It was shameful; she knew they took pride in that naming convention, a tribute to the common culture the two species had preserved despite millennia of isolation of separate moons, but she couldn't help it.

"Specialist Vell, you've returned safely, I'm glad," Captain Trovin saluted smartly, and he actually used the vocoder on his armor, not the comlink, which was much appreciated. "And the results of your mission?"

"I lured their group off on the trajectory you indicated," it hadn't been easy, getting the better part of one hundred mixed battle droids to follow you while not being shot to ribbons took some work. "I had to fight off some stragglers though, it was a rough loop back, but I believe I shed all pursuit."

"I hope so," the Ice Dagger leader muttered. "I hate to keep asking you to take these risks Vell, but you can do things my men can't. If this latest effort succeeded we should be able to hole up here for about eight hours more, and then blow the thermal charges at quadrant six-six-eight and take the principal icewash tunnel north, bypassing their entire search net in the confusion."

It was all military doublespeak to Chloe's ears. She was trained to fight, and to win. She understood small scale tactics and individual and group battle, but these complex evasion strategies didn't mean much to her. "What good does that do us?"

"Ideally, it means they'll have to reconfigure the entire search, which gives us a chance to either link up to some other hold out units, or to finally develop a plan to get the doc off Temishi IV and to safety, which is the principal mission." His body stiffened as he spoke, a sign of the considerable stress the man was under. "We can't just keep evading the droids forever Vell."

"Yes sir," Chloe understood, though she didn't much like it. The Ice Daggers, all fifteen commandos and the four poor Emerald squadron pilots who'd been unluckily drafted into the crew, were prepared to die to a man in order to get Dr. Compesda, now surely huddling in the warmest place he could find inside the Badger, to a place the Separatists couldn't reach. She wasn't quite up to that level of fatalism herself. Dying to preserve the secrecy of some Twin Moons weapon system, one whose development had obviously been betrayed to the enemy, wasn't really in her plans.

Despite her reluctance, Chloe somehow understood that she needed to be on this mission, that it was essential she be here. The feeling came strongest when she went through the Teras Kasi exercises and disciplines, meaning it came from the Force, since it was those methods that gave her limited control over the unearthly talent. Martial arts master was a poor substitute for Jedi training, if the stories about Jedi were even partly true, Chloe had never seen one or met anyone who had, but it was better than nothing. It provided stability, direction, understanding, and a measure of control. It was enough to keep the dangers of the Force from swallowing her up.

Teras Kasi had originally been developed by Force Users, it was something the Epicanthix practitioners of the art knew well, the origin world of the art, Bunduki, was a tributary of the Impergium. In the absence of guidance from the absent Jedi, children who demonstrated conclusive force talent, young men and women like Chloe, had long been encouraged to pursue the martial art, to train themselves and learn focus and restraint. History indicated that it had worked, more or less. The Impergium produced a lot less Force crazies than other places in the Outer Rim.

Dismissed by the Captain, Chloe went through a few exercises to loosen up, and then settled down to rest, finding a spot of rubble somewhat softer than the surrounding ice. Many of the commandos were doing the same; there was never enough sleep when fighting in a mobile operation like this one. They trusted their captain and the other officers to see them through, while the Epicanthix trusted her training and hard earned skills. Their position was close to hopeless, but somehow no one, not even the doctor and his poor technicians, frightened and completely unequipped for this insanity, had given in to despair.

The continual smashing of battle droids who thought they had them helped, Chloe thought as she dozed off.

**Chapter Notes:** Teras Kasi is a canonical martial art in Star Wars (there's a video game about it, and it's been mentioned in several sources, such as Death Star). It originates at Bunduki, which is a world that the Epicanthix canonically control.


End file.
